The present invention relates generally to lottery games, and more particularly to electronic instant lottery games.
Instant, or xe2x80x9cscratch-offxe2x80x9d, lottery games are well known and widely practiced. Such instant lottery games are games that allow a player to purchase a chance to win one of a set of prizes. For example, for $1 a player may purchase a chance to win $10,000, $1,000, $100, or two (2) extra chances to win a prize. Such games typically involve the sale to a player of a paper or cardboard game ticket. A typical instant lottery game ticket includes a background section and a play section. The background section typically includes the name of the game, instructions for playing the game, information describing the game, and information describing how to win an award. The play section of such a ticket typically includes one or more play areas which contain an outcome. The outcome comprises a combination of symbols (e.g. alphanumeric characters or icons) that are initially hidden from the player. The outcome is typically hidden by an opaque covering material, such as a layer of latex. The player reveals the outcome by scratching off (such as with a coin) the covering layer over the symbols.
Certain outcomes or combinations of symbols in instant lottery games correspond to respective prizes. Which combinations of symbols correspond to which prizes is typically displayed to the player on the background area of the ticket. Thus, a player that purchases such an instant lottery ticket knows whether or not he has won a prize as soon as the covering layer is scratched off. If the outcome revealed by the player matches a combination of symbols that corresponds to a prize, the player may exchange the ticket with the winning outcome for the prize corresponding to the combination of symbols revealed on the ticket. For example, if the player purchased the instant lottery ticket from a convenience store and the corresponding prize is $25, the player may return to the convenience store and exchange the winning ticket for the $25. The convenience store may then turn in the exchanged ticket to the authority administering the lottery to recoup the $25 provided to the player. For larger prizes the player may need to turn in the ticket directly to the authority administering the lottery game.
Recently electronic instant lottery games have been gaining popularity. An example of such an electronic instant lottery game is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,871,398. U.S. Pat. No. 5,871,398 discloses an off-line remote lottery system which enables a player to purchase instant-type lottery game outcomes from a central computer. The player views the outcomes on a remotely located gaming computer, such as a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA). In such electronic versions of an instant lottery game each outcome is essentially a xe2x80x98ticketxe2x80x99 which the player purchases.
Both the traditional and the electronic instant lottery games offer opportunities for improvement. For example, the instant lottery game is played in a very short amount of time (i.e. the amount of time it takes a player to scratch off the latex covering and reveal the outcome). Once the player reveals the outcome the game is over. If the outcome does not correspond to a prize this feels very discouraging to the player, who may feel that the money that was spent on the purchase of the ticket vanished in an instant without providing a sufficiently entertaining experience. Such a feeling may discourage a player from purchasing another ticket. Also, the loyalty of a player who purchases tickets frequently or purchases a plurality of tickets is not recognized or rewarded in the prior art instant lottery systems, which may discourage a player from continuing to purchase tickets. At the very least the player is not encouraged to continue to purchase tickets for a particular instant lottery game or from a particular instant lottery game authority. Improvements to the prior art systems of instant lottery games are needed to overcome such disadvantages.
To alleviate the disadvantages of the prior art instant lottery games, systems and methods are disclosed wherein a number of occurrences of a first symbol within a duration comprising at least two lottery game outcomes is determined and a bonus is caused to be provided if the number of occurrences of the first symbol within the duration is at least a minimum number of occurrences.
In some embodiments of the present invention a number of actual occurrences of the first symbol during the duration is determined, a number of occurrences of the first symbol that qualify for the bonus is determined, and the step of causing a bonus to be provided comprises causing a bonus to be provided if the number of occurrences of the first symbol that qualify for the bonus is at least a minimum number. For example, in some embodiments of the present invention an occurrence of a symbol may qualify for a bonus for a predetermined amount of time from the time of the occurrence.
With these and other advantages and features of the invention that will become hereinafter apparent, the nature of the invention may be more clearly understood by reference to the following detailed description of the invention, the appended claims and the several drawings attached herein.